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Founders Dan and David Burton started
Burton Pools & Spas in 1978 from
their home. Today Burton Pools &
Spas builds the finest swimming pools
and also sells the top brand of spas
in Arkansas. With locations in Fort
Smith, Springdale, and Conway, Burton
Pools has also expanded to carry other
leisure items for the home, including
patio furniture, gas fireplaces, playground
equipment, billiard tables, and saunas.
Burton Pools & Spas is recognized
by Pacific Pools as being the largest
pool builder in the world for Graphic
Pools. It has been mentioned many times
by Aqua Magazine as one of the top 100
pool companies in the U.S., and recognized
as Dealer of the Year by Hot Springs
Spa and South Central Pool Distribution.
Also, the company has been honored with
a gold medal by the National Spa and
Pool Institution for pool design and
construction.
With up to 100 employees on staff during
the peak season, Burton Pools installs
about 200 in-ground and 400 above ground
pools a year. Burton Pools & Spas
runs on Everest Software.
The
Challenge
Burton Pools was managing
the business previously with Great Plains
and later switched to software called
Real-Time. “We were not happy with
Great Plains because it did not have
point-of-sale at that time, which was
a requirement in our business,”
said Cathy Breedlove, CPA and controller
at Burton Pools.
As the company grew it discovered the
obvious need for more robust software
to manage all of the accounting, inventory,
point-of-sale, sales and purchasing
all in one – it needed a fully-integrated
solution.
"Real-Time was not
a bad software product, but the problem
was we were too big for it. We had gotten
to the point where we would delete sales
history every three to four weeks to
keep it running and to be able to put
in the information that we needed to
put in everyday," said Breedlove.
The largest single deficiency of the software was it could not handle the number of transactions that the company was processing – 400 to 500 daily – at the time. "Around the month of June or July we would have to literally close everything down," said Breedlove. "We'd be there late at night, trying to get everything done for the next day so that we could get it up and running; it was just a frustrating time."
As if working several late nights in a row wasn't already frustrating, Real-Time crashing incessantly during peak season was the last straw. "We knew we would have to make some changes," recalled Breedlove, whochose Everest over fifteen other software packages considered.
The
Solution
Working with a modest budget,
Burton Pools purchased a twenty-user license
of Everest Standard Edition in 2001. "We
went out looking for software that wasn't
really overly expensive because we weren't
a big company, we were a mid-size company
and we couldn't afford half a million dollar
software," said Breedlove. "Everest
seemed to meet the majority of our needs and
I've been very pleased with it. Everest was
in the ballpark figure we were ready to spend,
and the dollar value was very good."
Cost and integration weren't the only factors
in Breedlove's arrival on Everest. Ease of
use was of equal importance in choosing the
right solution for the business. "In
our company, people have very little knowledge
of computers. I needed something that was
very user-friendly so that we could put that
to use, so that's why we settled on using
Everest," said Breedlove.
Burton Pools is now well connected and in-sync
across its three locations and warehouses.
Apart from managing inventory of 15,000 SKUs,
plus accounting and purchasing with Everest's
integrated capabilities, Burton Pools also
has Everest point-of-sale terminals running
at its three retail locations. "We have
our other two outside locations connected
through Terminal Server and there is no
delay – it's been very quick, which is
wonderful," said Breedlove. "We
have college students handling point-of-sale
on the cash registers. Everest has been very
user-friendly and easy to train the college
students to use."
From a business standpoint, Burton Pools has
increased its sales by 20% without having
to increase the employee overhead, since running
on Everest. "Our sales have gone up approximately
by two million dollars and we did not have
to increase employees," said Breedlove.
According to Breedlove, the reports functionality
in Everest is accurate, timely, and insightful.
"The reports are very good, the formats
are good. They are easy to run and I found
it very beneficial," she added. "Most
software as compared to Everest would require
you to go through a huge process to run reports
and to do entries. Everest has been much simpler
than a lot of other packages I've seen."
Now Burton Pools runs more efficiently, making
everyone's job easier. "Everest being
integrated really helps in the reporting.
With the previous software, it would take
a month to get reports, and now it's done
in two weeks. We're all very pleased with
it."
Using Everest to access customer information
has been a big benefit to the service department
at Burton Pools. While on a call with the
customer, the staff uses the notes in the
customer history functionality to get a quick
view of type of items bought, the date of
purchase, and the warranty period.
"Previously it would take research to
get information on our customer, which it
was not easily available. Now we can let the
customer know immediately on the phone. We
don't have to look into each individual invoice
– we just look at the notes we've created
for the customer, which pops up immediately,"
said Breedlove. "We could not do any
of that before for our customers. We could
not look up their history that quickly."
Looking forward, Breedlove plans to fully
utilize the e-commerce capabilities of Everest
and plans to make Burton Pools available online.
The
Result
100% return on investment within two
years
Integrated entire operations under
one system, including point-of -sale
Upped sales by 20% in two years, with
no increase in overhead
Facilitated faster and better reports
Increased productivity and customer
service with real-time access to serve
a customer’s request
